Yes, I am taking 'his' name.

Dear Feminists,

Yes, I am taking my partner's surname in marriage. No, I don't believe this makes me submissive or a disgrace to the female gender.

To me, marriage is about refinforcing that we are taking on life together - as a team! As such I want to share a last name, a team name, and I don't mind being the one to change. I don't have a particularly strong attatchment to my last name (which, I might remind you, came from my father's side anyway) and would happily swap it. Considering this, it seems crazy and selfish to force him into changing his name just so that we fit a particular feminist criteria. Even more so as it's a stance that I don't see as very progressive.

Another reason for sharing a name is that we do want to have children together. If we don't take on a name together now, we only delay this same decision for them. Do they have my name, his name, or both? My name if it's a boy, his if it's a girl? There are various solutions avaiable, but I'd rather have our children feel like we're all the same than use them to make quasi political statements. Not to mention that, with our surnames being quite simlar (there is in fact only two letters difference), they sound pretty awful hyphenated.

Early on, I suggested that we think of an entirely new last name together, but we haven't thought of one that we like. To be honest, I've really gotten used to the idea of being Mrs R, married to Mr R. I'm not unthinkingly accepting the tradition. We have thought about and talked about it as a couple and made the decision that we see as most fitting to our long term values. This, I think, is the most important point: it is a decision that we made together. So, I'm pretty sick of justifying it to everybody. This wedding is not about me being a woman and him being a man, it's about us being equal parts of a long term and complex organism.

Our decision doesn't have to be the same as your decision as long as it's right for us.

Yours, The Future Mrs R.